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Shared Ownership

New build homes

Shared ownership is an affordable home ownership programme. It involves buying a share in a property, usually 50%, and paying rent on the remaining share you do not own. Gradually you may buy further shares in the property known as “staircasing” and eventually purchase the final share so you own your home outright.

We are developing more new shared ownership homes across Cheshire. Please register your interest sosales@wvht.co.uk or call us on 01606 813 319 for an informal chat about shared ownership and our homes.

The cost of Shared Ownership

You will need to finance the costs of buying a share in the property. This is normally done by arranging a mortgage. The other costs of buying will be similar to those of any normal house purchase:

Legal fees

Survey

Stamp duty (if applicable)

Valuation fee

Land Registry fee

Deposit

Once you have bought a share in a shared ownership home, you will need to consider the regular costs associated with home ownership:

Monthly mortgage payments

Rent

Council tax

Water, gas, electricity

Repair and maintenance

Insurance

Also remember that further costs will be incurred when you purchase additional shares in the property.

How much rent will I pay?

The rent that you pay depends on the share that you buy. As you buy more shares, your rent payment decreases and once you have ‘staircased to 100%, you own all of the property and no longer pay rent.

It is a ‘reduced’ rent that does not include a fee for maintenance services as shared owners are responsible for paying for repairs to their home in the same way that all homeowners are.

The monthly rent is calculated using this calculation: value of unsold equity x 2.75% / 12

The table below illustrates the rent that would be payable on a property with a full market value of £135,000:

It is an affordable way to buy a home for many people as it means you require a smaller mortgage and deposit. You must buy the largest share that you can afford, up to a maximum of 75% initially and can buy more shares (known as ‘staircasing’) when you can afford to.

If you can afford to buy more than 75%, you should be able to buy a property outright so may not be able to buy a shared ownership property. However, every purchaser is different and we will carry out affordability assessments to ensure that the purchase is both affordable and sustainable and take into account other charges that you may have to pay (e.g. ground rent and service charges), your ability to secure a mortgage and other financial commitments that you may have.